


The Last Refuge of the Unimaginative

by Rag



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen, Grief/Mourning, Internal Conflict, Past Abuse, Past Child Abuse, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-20
Updated: 2017-06-20
Packaged: 2018-11-16 15:26:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11255721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rag/pseuds/Rag
Summary: Your name is Rose Lalonde, and busy though you should be on the meteor with your incredible girlfriend and your ecto-brother and a variety of pleasant and unpleasant new company, your mind insists that it’s time to get Freudian and think about your mother. Really think about her. Especially the bits you’ve been ignoring for so long. Put together all those mismatching disparate parts into something that isn’t quite so glaringly painful to look at. Time to try to make a cohesive picture that you can truly understand, apparently, even though you’re fully aware that the task your subconscious is setting for you is beyond impossible.





	The Last Refuge of the Unimaginative

Your name is Rose Lalonde, and busy though you should be on the meteor with your incredible girlfriend and your ecto-brother and a variety of pleasant and unpleasant new company, your mind insists that it’s time to get Freudian and think about your mother. _Really_ think about her. Especially the bits you’ve been ignoring for so long. Put together all those mismatching disparate parts into something that isn’t quite so glaringly painful to look at. Time to try to make a cohesive picture that you can truly understand, apparently, even though you’re fully aware that the task your subconscious is setting for you is beyond impossible.

You don’t really want to do this, and you fight with yourself every time your ever-insistent brain tries to hammer down this hopelessly warped sheet into something understandable. But it’s getting harder to subvert your attention or project onto others. What with the small matter of her sudden, violent, and untimely death, you’re having trouble not thinking about her on a near-constant basis, and your feelings about her vacillate wildly and uncontainably.

You reviled her, and then she died, and you were consumed by fury, mostly at yourself. She had been right, all those years – you were an ungrateful brat. She had her faults, but don’t we all? You were far too hard on her entirely human failings. You were an awful little wench, and she would never know the pleasure of having a daughter who wasn’t a horrible, selfish monster.

And it felt good to blame yourself and fall completely into that, an incomprehensible, histrionic monster, until you remembered this or that choice anecdote, and your feelings swayed into horrible uncomfortable ambivalence.

Anecdote 1:

She always had guests over for wine and conversation. They were strange men and women around her age. Eventually she would tell you, in no uncertain terms, to just stay in your room while they were around. But not at first. At first, you would go out to see them, sometimes – though mostly to see her. You were seven or so at the time of this event.

“Everyone, this is my daughter Rose. Rose, say hello,” and then she would list of the names of the guests in rapid-fire, too fast for you to hope to get them all. You didn’t like being the center of the room like that, didn’t like all these strangers looking at you, but your mom kept her hands on your shoulders, which you understood to be a command to stay as she listed off all these traits she was proud of you for – how you did _so_ well in school, you were so _unbelievably_ bright, you had a wide circle of friends and seemed to make fast friends with just about everyone you met (which… wasn’t true, even remotely, but she would never hear of it, telling you that you were just self-conscious because you were young). It made you beam with pride, because she was praising you, but even then you thought it a bit strange that she rarely praised you alone - only in front of her friends, or your instructors, or check-out clerks. Only to other people.

“Isn’t that right, Rose?”

You nodded.

“It’s hard being a single mother, but little Rose here is the light of my life. We keep each other strong, don’t we, darling?”

You didn’t understand. But you nodded.

“She’s so sweet,” one of them said.

“She’ll be a real catch when she’s older.”

You wanted to leave as they complimented you. You didn’t know them and you didn’t want their strange words about you. But you stayed until she let go of you, after the conversation had moved on to something more political in nature.

You tried to pull her aside later that night.

“Mom, I’m hungry.”

All the warmth from earlier died from her eyes. She seemed perplexed that you were approaching her at all.

“Then eat something.”

You were confused. She usually cooked for you. You didn’t have the words to communicate this. “What do I eat?”

She breathed sharply. “We’re having a party, Rose, this is not the time.”

 You didn’t know what to make of that.

“You didn’t make dinner.”

She looked over her shoulder and pinched the bridge of her nose. “We have bread. Is that not good enough for you? Just grab some and go upstairs.”

You didn’t understand – an all-too-common refrain in your dealings with her – because dinner was usually served around 6:00 and it was past 7:30, and she didn’t care when you usually asked to be fed, but today you felt like you were being punished for it. You grabbed a single, plain slice of bread from the counter and put it on a plate, and took it to your room. You ate it slowly to make it last. You read books and waited for them to leave so that you could eat something else, because you were still hungry, but your mom clearly wanted you away. You felt ashamed, but didn’t know why.

After they left, she demanded you open your door. She was still angry, if not angrier than before.

“Is it your aim to humiliate me? Are you _trying_ to ruin my reputation? You cheeky little wench.”

“What?”

“Don’t act like you don’t know what you did.” She pointed at your empty plate. “ _That_ display of rebellion raised more than a few eyebrows, just like you’d hoped it would.”

“I didn’t try- you told me to get some bread-“

She crossed her arms and glared at you. “You _knew_ exactly what I meant, Rose. You know what you did. Don’t play the rules lawyer to me, young lady.”

“I’m not! What are you talking about?”

“You intentionally humiliated me in front of my friends.”

“I didn’t mean to, Mom-“

“Don’t _lie_ to me!”

“Mom, please-“

“Be quiet. You’re grounded for the next week, and you’ll spend the night in your room. Maybe you’ll think twice the next time you want to be a malicious little twat.”

You cried as she locked your door from the outside. You told her that you were hungry. She must have heard you, but she didn’t reply. You yelled, and she turned on loud music to drown you out. You slept poorly through the loud music and the pangs in your stomach.

The next morning, the lock on your door was released. She was leaning against the counter scowling when you came to the kitchen. She usually poured your cereal for you, but not today. You understood what she was saying without words – that you’d messed up so badly, she wasn’t going to do this for you anymore, because you didn’t deserve it. You cried, you apologized for something you didn’t do, and she glowered at you and nodded before reminding you that you were still grounded. She showed you where the cereal and milk were. You poured it for yourself from that day on.

That instance stuck with you for a while, by which you mean forever. Sometimes, even when you’re feeling more charitable towards her and more furious with yourself, you remember that and it stops your self-chastisement right in its tracks and replaces it with uncertainty.

You mourn her. You absolutely mourn her. And it feels like that is what she would want. She would want your self-flagellation and apologies. She would want to see this guilt. She deserved to see it.

Anecdote 2:

She’s the reason you took interest in psychology. Because as you got older, you got better at arguing against her, and she started claiming to have not said things she’d just said. You recorded conversations with her on your phone to be sure you weren’t imagining it. You weren’t. And you searched online for possible causes of forgetting what you’d just said. You found a few things that might or might not apply to her, but you also found an article about anterograde amnesia, which horrified you and fascinated you and drew you to learn more and more about how the human mind works and fails to work. And the rest was writ in history as you found your life’s calling.

At one point, you played back the recording for her. Proof, you supposed. You don’t know what you hoped to get out of the endeavor, but you know you genuinely thought it would accomplish something. It did not.

“Incredible, Rose. You would _record_ your own _mother_ to try to catch her in a _lie_. Again with this nonsense rules lawyering. What did I do to raise you to be such a …” She sighed and changed course. “Yes, that is what I _said_ , but it’s more than obvious from the context that it’s not what I meant.”

Pointless. Arguing with her was pointless, and continued to be pointless. But you kept doing it.

You never did find anything that felt like it really fit your mother’s patterns of behavior. That had puzzled you for years, and you allowed it to. Some part of you must have realized that you weren’t really looking, because didn’t really want to know. So you applied your skills to safer and much more interesting subjects, like your animals, your friends, and fools on the internet who dared to argue with your objectively correct interpretations of media. By which you mean that you aggressively armchair diagnosed people who shipped your NOTP. You were kind of a little shit. You were also a child.

Anecdote 3:

“How long are you going to mope about that stupid cat? If you want to see him again so badly, I can figure something out for you.”

There are more anecdotes. And the more you think of, the more you remember. It makes your feelings about her very messy and uncomfortable.

And you don’t like it. You don’t want to steer this train any farther on the inevitable track it’s barreling towards, because you know you won't like what’s at the end of it. 

You prefer not to think about it.

You don’t stumble across alcohol. You’re curious about it. You look into it when you realize that you have every ability to try it. And you seize the opportunity.

When you’re drinking, you calm down and stop worrying so much. You tell yourself that you see why she liked it so much, and it’s really just terribly silly and childish but you feel like you’re getting closer to her, to _really_ understanding her, clinical terminology and the research of millions of dead souls be damned.

Maybe heavily drinking every day isn’t the most sustainable activities. You no longer have to worry about your health, but it’s straining your relationships a bit. Kanaya especially seems more than a little annoyed by it, but if she was truly bothered, she would most likely say something to you directly. Maybe someday you’ll have to talk about it. But in the meantime, it helps to serve your goals – not thinking about things that are best left untouched.


End file.
